Comments

Comment by BenoitXVI

My suggestion here is to keep using the first rank of this spell and never buy/use any other rank for two reasons:

- It would be waste of gold.

- What you want from this spell is the freeze effect, and from rank 1 to 4 the only difference is the damage done and the Mana cost. I don't think it's worth giving away more mana for the same result.

Comment by bangy

Don't bother getting rank 5, just stick with rank 1. You do not use the spell for damage - 100 damage at this level is pathetic anyway. Save your gold and mana.

This is a very useful spell, allowing you to step/blink back and fire away. Effective in soloing, or mass PvP charge. Also helpful in chasing runners, although the range is somewhat short. One of the most used spells.Frostbite, a talent, gives similar results - every time you chill someone they have a chance of freezing.

Comment by Maple

This is one of the most important spells in the mage's selection, as mages are "clothies" and as such, MUST avoid melee combat. This spell allows that.

It is also the reason that mages are very good at defending in WSG, as they can stop several enemies in the flag room, for the mage's teammates to destroy.

Comment by Cure

For you potential Frost Mages out there, here is a helpful hint:

When you get to the point where upgrading your Frost Nova, this is a must have. Once you spec this up, go for Shatter in your Frost talent tree. This is pretty much the only reason you go frost mage because it makes you crit very often.

So now when you use Frost Nova, they get frozen, as quickly as possible hit them with all the frost spells you got. This will do about 1000 damage everytime.

Comment by ansepheth

Melee classes hate mages almost only because of this spell. Use this to freeze them in place and blink to safety (or run if you don't have blink), then blast them from your new location to seal the deal. Melee classes who can't get close to their targets are doomed. >=D

Comment by star1

i am a frost and arcane mage, everyone i have talked to, hates it when mages use frost nova and then run around them at a safe point and cast the aoe arcane until they are dead ,, which for me its fun bc if u have the skills and know your class of a mage good, u can take out about 4 at a time , while u run in circles .. just make sure u have a big mana pool :)

Comment by starkill

frost nova is a very usfall spell for getting out of warrior owning me right now situations. you just frost and blink very simple but very effective.

Comment by Hansol

This is very usefull when AoE grinding, You can hold off the enemys from attacking you, if you did you wouldnt be able to channel blizzard because of it beeing canceled. Also used to travel and stop what ever is chasing you, Blink and Frost Nova works very well.

Comment by skitzosmeagol

In coninuation of blandy's post he is very right, use the lower ranks, they last the SAME duration as the higher ones and cost a substantial amount of mana less. The extra 100 damage isn't worth the mana. The mana you save could supply a scorch for ~300. Understand the range of this spell is increased by Artic Reach, giving you more distance, and ridding you of the "a little close and i can do it". You never want anyone to get close, thats why the Artic Reach is amazing.

Comment by PerilousPwner

Everyone should think hard about this. Why do you use frost nova? Well every mage I've asked (including myself) is to freeze a target in place. There is no mention of damage. So a little tip to all my fellow mages, don't use precious mana on higher rank Frost Nova, save it for a frostbolt/fireball, it will still freeze them for up to 8 seconds.

But I have a 8k mana pool, I don't care about mana!

Think about it, when is the last time in AV where you had the chance to drink up fully. How many times have you been short that 90 mana to a Ice Barrior?

Comment by Wildarms1

rank 1 frostbolt owns the highest rank. you can just as easily kite any melee with it and frost nova rank 1 would just ice the cake.

Comment by yobo

Yeah... I would have to disagree with this comment. For a lvl 60 frost mage that gets +100 to crit bonus and your spell dmg gear you can get this to crit for 200-300 damage almost like an Arcane Explosion unbuffed. Giving this up so you can save 60 mana is... pretty negligent in my opinion.

Comment by Mikezila

Heard they were renaming this "Freeze".

Comment by Tehsteve

You might want to note that Mobs will always try to attack something. So if you frost nova them and you're then out of reach they'll try and attack something else unfriendly, in my case it was the level 17 Warlock I was twinking through Deadmines that had decided to stand in the middle of the group of mobs I was aoe-ing... Not a good sight. This is probably one of the few cases in which mobs will ignore their agro-metres.

Comment by rilus

Unfortunately, as of patch 2.0.10 Frost Nova will now break on first crit, regardless. This was to prevent Ice Lance spamming.

Comment by rilus

Unfortunately, as of patch 2.0.10 Frost Nova will now break on first crit, regardless. This was to prevent Ice Lance spamming.

Comment by Lilithus

how big is the radius of this spell?10 yards?

Comment by Moshimoshi

Rank 1 frost nova is the only rank of this spell that can be overwritten by a frostbite, using any higher rank will only grant you this message upon a frostbite proc: "a more powerful spell is already active"

Personally, I use rank 1 exclusively since I've specced frostbite and consider the chance of getting a frostbite proc more valuable than doing negligably more damage with frost nova.

Comment by Spinnacer

And the point of rank 5 Frost Nova is..?? They might as well remove rank 2-3-4-5.

Comment by Nerobyrne

Definately, using frost nova rank 1 has saved my life so many times on my 70 mage....because I can use it even if my mana is really low....for me it has made a huge difference, being able to freeze with 50 mana instead of 200+....I know that the dmg is less, but that hasn't bothered me really, i don't even notice it. Also, it's nice to be able to get 1.6k crits with only 150 mana, especially in pvp^^

Comment by arcanum

also remember if your fighting another mage....blink out of this, and fast

Comment by Kaejer

I would definitely recommend using Frost Nova rank 1. When you get some of the higher ranking spells of Frost Nova it's scaling up pretty high with the mana cost of Frost Bolt.

So using the last rank of Frost Nova to get your 99-111 damage base twice costs as much mana as one Frost Bolt (Rank 14) to do about a third of the damage. Also, since Frost Bolt (Rank 14) has a base casting time of 3 seconds, rather than instant, it receives a lot more of your spell damage. Also since there is the talent to gain 10% bonus spell damage with Frost Bolt (Rank 14), it massively overwhelms how big it becomes compared to Frost Nova (Rank 5). So when your Frost Bolt (Rank 14) is doing about 1,000 damage with your spell damage, your Frost Nova (Rank 5) is doing about 150-175; so 2 Frost Novas = 1 Frost Bolt. Frost Nova (Rank 1) costs 55 mana to deal 19-21 damage, which is of course a lot less damage. It's approximately 1/3 of the last ranks mana, which obviously means it won't compete with damage, but 55 mana is something most people always have, unless when they are being mana burned.

Since most people use Frost Nova just to freeze someone for Shatter, it seems more efficient to use Frost Nova (Rank 1), rather than Frost Nova (Rank 5). Now if you have that kind of extra mana/mana regeneration do what you will with it.

Comment by hj0mar

If you got a small mana pool you might want to consider using the Rank 1 version of this spell, since the freeze time is the same and you use 130 less mana.

Comment by Ayyyey

Be careful when using this spell in instances. If you frost nova a group of mobs, and the tank moves away from them, they will hit whoever they can reach if they're melee. This usually means that frost nova kills the rogue.

Comment by Shippo

I think all mages should be using Rank 1 of this spell.

Comment by Shippo

I recomend using this rank all the time. The argument that its damage output compared to other ranks is feeble. More then likely your using this spell for the effect not the damage.

Comment by xenjuarn

New frost nova ranks deal way much more dmg compared to pre-wotlk ones. Maybe its time to replace our rank1 frost novas with proper rank.

Comment by kysta

As of the next patch, Frost Nova (rank 6) costs the same mana as rank 5, and less than Rank 1-4.

All smart mages will be using max rank Frost Nova after the WotLK patch.

Comment by Mindburn

Can be dispelled by a warlocks felhunter using Devour.

Comment by Meet

Ok patch 3.0.2 is here, and its time to leave this lowbie spell for highest rank.

Rank 5 now cost 2% less of base mana, 8% of base mana.

Comment by Abzinthe

z

Comment by Darkrainin

excellent when soloing to pop off an evocation (if you pulled to many and are low on mana)

Comment by Gumog

Alas, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, in 3.0.2 and higher there is no longer any benefit to downranking as the mana costs are now percentages of base mana and not fixed values. :(

Comment by marjak93

"Damage caused may interrupt the effect."What is the chance of this happening?

Comment by Onisuke

It can crit a lot more than that, I got to 1400 dmg crits with FN, and taking into account the use of base mana % instead of a fixed value, it's better to use max rank always.

Comment by Silersun4

I don't see much of a use for Frost Nova. It just adds a small amount of damage. Does it increase how much damage the ice can take before it brakes? If not, I suggest not using this yet... wait for like rank 3 or 4

Comment by Torkan91

I don't know if anyone has else has seen the same thing as me, but I can no longer see the Frost Nova "AoE effect" when I use it. Also, I have all my video settings on maximum, and I have asked friends if it's the same thing for them. Now I only see the target getting frozen if it hits.

Comment by idiggory

This costs the same amount of mana as Rank 1. And it isn't expensive. And you'll use it for 14 levels (and probably for MANY of your solo kills in those levels).

Might as well grab it to do some more damage.

Comment by Bumluffa

Using low rank Frost Novas also cause "Shatter" to proc far less often than the 50% it says if you have it specced 5/5 due to the way things scale